Will
The November US Presidential Election Bring The End Of The World?

Paul
Craig Roberts

"We
have been watching for nearly a month a steady buildup of American
and NATO forces along Russia's borders -- on land, on sea and in the
air. There has been nothing like this on Russia's borders, such an
amassing of hostile military force, since the German invasion of the
Soviet Union in 1941."

So
concludes America's leading Russian expert, Professor Stephen Cohen
(Princeton and New York University).

Professor
Cohen asks if Washington is sleepwalking and needs to wake up or
whether Washington has gone crazy and intends war.

Pepe
Escobar advises Washington to "beware what you wish for: Russia
is ready for war."

Escobar
reports that recently the Rand Corporation, "essentially a CIA
outpost," concluded that "Russia could over-run NATO in a
mere 60 hours, if not less." On the level of nukes and missile
systems, Russia is four generations ahead of the US military/security
complex, which is mainly interested in inflating profits with cost
overruns. US weapons systems are simply outclassed.

Nevertheless,
the Russian high command is concerned with the Russian government's
low-key response to Washington's aggression. The generals blame the
"Atlanticists Integrationists" who infect Putin's
government. This faction is believed to be organized around Prime
Minister Dmitry Medvedev and believes Russia should make concessions
to Washington in order to be accepted as part of the West. The
incompetent Russian central bank and neoliberal economists are part
of the faction whose goal is to be part of the West regardless of its
impact on Russian independence from Washington's Empire.

Stephen
Cohen and Alastair Crooke, a former British secret agent, almost
alone in the West have noticed that the Russian military and the
predominant part of the government that emphasizes national
sovereignty are putting pressure on President Putin to eliminate
those in the government who are willing to compromise Russia's
independence in order to gain acceptance by Washington.

This
has been my own opinion for some time. It is impossible to adequately
stand up to an external threat when unreliable elements are part of
the threatened government.

If
Putin is forced to remove Washington's agents from his government, as
he must do if Russia is to survive Washington's plots, he must not
let them leave Russia. If they escape, they will end up in Washington
to be used as Washington's Russian government in exile. If Putin
doesn't want to put them on trial for treason, then a form of
national house arrest would be a solution.

Alastair
Crooke writes that Washington is miscalulating by seeking unipolar
hegemony and, thus, is forcing Putin into the camp of the
nationalists who value Russia's sovereignty more than Western
acceptance. Washington's use of NATO in an effort to corner Russia
with military buildups on Russia's land and sea borders is forcing
compromise out of Russia's response to Washington's aggression.

Regardless
of Escobar's description of Russian military superiority over the
West, Russian independence is between a rock and a hard place. The
rock is the American neoconservatives' determination to achieve
hegemony over Russia. The hard place is those within the Russian
government who are more Western than Russian in their orientation.

If
Trump becomes US president, there is some possibility, perhaps, that
the neoconservatives will cease to dominate US foreign and military
policies. Should this turn out to be the case, the Russian
nationalists might ease their pressure on Putin to remove the
Atlanticist Integrationists from the government.

If
Hillary becomes US president, the neoconservative threat to Russia
will escalate. The Atlanticist Integrationists will be eliminated
from the Russian government, and Russia will move to full war
standing.

Remember
what an unprepared Russia did to the German Wehrmacht, at that time
the most powerful army ever assembled. Imagine what a prepared Russia
would do to the crazed Hillary and the incompetent neoconservatives.

As
I have previously written, pushing Russia to war means the demise of
the US and Europe and, considering the destructive power of nuclear
weapons, most likely of all life on earth.

The
main cause of this danger is the arrogance, hubris, and utter
stupidity of the American neoconservatives who are ensconced in
positions of power and influence and in Hillary's presidential
campaign. A secondary cause is Europe's vassal status, which deprives
Europe of a sensible foreign policy and forces Europe to enable
Washington's aggression.

What
this means is that no matter what you think of Trump, if you vote for
Hillary you are definitely voting for the end of the world.

Afghans
must now rest assured that NATO’s Resolute Support mission –
plus “financial
support for Afghan forces” –
will finally assure the success of Operation Enduring Freedom
forever.

Libyans
must be reassured, in the words of NATO figurehead secretary Jens
Stoltenberg, that we“should
stand ready to support the new Government of National Accord in
Libya.”

Stoltenberg duly confirmed, “We
have already decided to enhance our forward presence in the eastern
part of our alliance. Our military planners have put forward
proposals of several battalions in different countries in the region.
No decision has been taken on the numbers and locations.”

These
puny “several
battalions” won’t
cause any Russian planner to lose sleep. The real“measure” is
the deployment of
the Aegis Ashore system in Romania last week – plus a further one
in Poland in 2018. This has been vehemently opposed by Moscow since
the early 2000s. NATO’s argument that the Aegis represents
protection against the “threat” of
ballistic missiles from Iran does not even qualify as kindergarten
play.

Every
Russian military planner knows the Aegis is not defensive. This is a
serious game-changer – as in de-localizing US nuclear capability to
Eastern Europe. No wonder Russian President Vladimir Putin had to
make it clear Russia would respond “adequately” to
any threat to its security.

Predictably
all Cold War 2.0 hell broke loose, all over again.

A
former NATO deputy commander went ballistic,
while saner heads wondered whether
Moscow, sooner rather than later, would have had enough of these
shenanigans and prepare for war.

That
worthless Patriot

A
case can be made that the Beltway – neocons and neoliberalcons
alike - do not want a hot war with Russia. What they want, apart from
racking in more cash for the Pentagon, is to raise the ante to such a
high level that Moscow will back down - based on a rational cost
analysis. Yet oil prices will inevitably rise later in 2016 – and
under this scenario Washington is a loser. So we may see a raise of
interest rates by the Fed (with all the money continuing to go to
Wall Street) trying to reverse the scenario.

Comparisons
of the current NATO buildup to pre-WWII buildups, or to NATO when
opposed to the Warsaw Pact, are amateurish. The THAAD and Patriot
missiles are worthless - according to the Israeli Defense Forces
(IDF) themselves; that’s why they tried to improve them with Iron
Dome.

Meanwhile,
those new NATO army “battalions” are
inconsequential. The basic thrust behind the Pentagon’s moves under
neocon Ash Carter continues to be to draw Russia ever further into
Syria and Ukraine (as if Moscow actually was involved in, or wanted,
a Ukrainian quagmire); trap Russia in proxy wars; and economically
bleed Russia to death while crippling the bulk of oil and natural gas
income to the Russian state.

Russia
does not want – and does not need – war. Yet the “Russian
aggression” narrative
never stops. Thus it’s always enlightening to come back to
thisRAND corporation study,
which examined what would happen if a war actually took place. RAND
reached an “unambiguous” conclusion
after a series of war games in 2015-2015; Russia could overrun NATO
in a mere 60 hours – if not less – if it ever amounted to a hot
war on European soil.

The
Rand Corporation is essentially a CIA outpost – thus a propaganda
machine. Yet it’s not propaganda to state the Baltic States and
Ukraine would completely fall in less than three days before the
Russian Army. However, the suggestion that additional NATO air power
and heavily armored combat divisions would make a material difference
is bogus.

The
Aegis changes the game in the sense that it qualifies as a launch
area for US missile defense. Think US missiles with minimum flying
time – around 30 minutes – from Moscow; that’s a certified
threat to the Russian nation. The Russian military has also
been “unambiguous”;
if it is ascertained that NATO – via the Pentagon – is about to
try something funny, there are grounds for a preventive strike by
Iskander-M systems out of Transnistria – as in the destruction of
the US missiles by conveniently armed precision weapons.

Meanwhile,
Moscow has pulled a stunning success – of course, it’s far from
over – in Syria. So what’s left for the Pentagon – via NATO –
is essentially to play the scare tactics card. They know Russia is
prepared for war – certainly much better prepared than NATO. They
know neither Putin nor the Russian military will back down because of
kindergarten scaremongering. As for a too conciliatory tone by the
Kremlin towards Washington, things may be about to change soon.

Say
hello to my S-500

The
Russian military are about to test the
first prototypes of the S-500 Prometey air and missile defense
system, also known as 55R6M Triumfator M – capable of destroying
ICBMs, hypersonic cruise missiles and planes at over Mach 5 speeds;
and capable of detecting and simultaneously attacking up to ten
ballistic missile warheads at a range of 1300 km. This means the
S-500 can smash ballistic missiles before their warheads re-enter the
atmosphere.

So
in the case of RAND-style NATO pussyfooting, the S-500 would totally
eliminate all NATO air power over the Baltic States – while the
advanced Kornet missile would destroy all NATO armored vehicles. And
that’s not even considering conventional
weapon hell.

If
push comes to nuclear shove, the S-400 and especially the S-500
anti-missile missiles would block all incoming US ICBMs, cruise
missiles and stealth aircraft. Offensive drones would be blocked by
drone defenses. The S-500 practically consigns to the dustbin stealth
warplanes such as the F-22, F-35 and the B-2.

The
bottom line is that Russia – in terms of hypersonic missile
development – is about four generations ahead of the US, if we
measure it by the development of the S-300, S-400 and S-500 systems.
As a working hypothesis, we could describe the next system –
already in the drawing boards – as the S-600. It would take the US
military at least ten years to develop and roll out a new weapons
system, which in military terms represents a generation. Every
Pentagon planner worth his pension plan should know that.

Russian
– and Chinese – missiles are already able to knock out the
satellite guidance systems for US nuclear tipped ICBMs and cruise
missiles. They could also knock out the early alert warnings that the
satellite constellations would give.

A Russian hypersonic ICBM flight
time, launched for instance from a Russian nuclear sub all the way to
the US East Coast, counts for less than 20 minutes. So an early
warning system is absolutely critical. Don’t count on the worthless
THAAD and Patriot to do their job. Once again, Russian hypersonic
technology has already rendered the
entire missile defense system in both the US and Europe totally
obsolete.

So
why is Moscow so worried by the Pentagon placing the Aegis system so
close to Russia’s borders? A credible answer is that Moscow is
always concerned that the US industrial military-complex might
develop some really effective anti-missile missiles even though they
are now about four generations behind.

At
the same time, Pentagon planners have reasons to be very worried by
what they know, or hint. At the same time the Russian military – in
a very Asian way – never reveal their full hand. The key fact of
the matter needs to be stressed over and over again; the S-500 is
impenetrable - and allows Russia for the first time in history to
launch a first strike nuclear attack, if it ever chooses to do so,
and be immune to retaliation.

The
rest is idle babbling. Still, expect the official Pentagon/NATO
narrative to remain the same. After all, the industrial-military
complex is a cash-devouring hydra,
and a powerful enemy is a must (the phony Daesh “caliphate” does
not count).

The
Threat Narrative rules that Russia has to meekly accept being
surrounded by NATO. Russia is not allowed any response; in any case,
any response will be branded as “Russian
aggression”.
If Russia defends itself, this will be “exposed” as
an unacceptable provocation. And may even furnish the pretext for a
pre-emptive attack by NATO against Russia.

Now
let those Pentagon/NATO planners duly go back to play in their lavish
kindergarten.

Pepe Escobar
is an independent geopolitical analyst. He writes for RT, Sputnik and
TomDispatch, and is a frequent contributor to websites and radio and
TV shows ranging from the US to East Asia. He is the former roving
correspondent for Asia Times Online. Born in Brazil, he's been a
foreign correspondent since 1985, and has lived in London, Paris,
Milan, Los Angeles, Washington, Bangkok and Hong Kong. Even before
9/11 he specialized in covering the arc from the Middle East to
Central and East Asia, with an emphasis on Big Power geopolitics and
energy wars. He is the author of "Globalistan" (2007), "Red
Zone Blues" (2007), "Obama does Globalistan" (2009)
and "Empire of Chaos" (2014), all published by Nimble
Books. His latest book is "2030", also by Nimble Books, out
in December 2015.